Climate Change Policy Options: Beyond Kyoto

A GlobeScan / SustainAbility Survey

At the end of this year the first commitment of the Kyoto Protocol will expire having failed to get carbon emissions down to a safe level. The main success appeared to be that the international policy process managed to stay on track despite the near breakdown of negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen. As we move into the post-Kyoto period we still have a climate change challenge that looms larger than ever and the governments of the world still have no clear plan to address it. So what next?

To better understand what it will take to make real progress on getting carbon reductions down to a safe level SustainAbility and GlobeScan surveyed more than 800 sustainability experts and practitioners located in more than 70 countries, asking for their views on climate-change policy. We asked respondents to rank the effectiveness of various mechanisms to address climate change, those that garnered most support – economic instruments, regulatory approaches and technology development – are those that will change the cost of emitting greenhouse gas emissions and, consequently, change the economics of energy.